kodiaktau writes: DHI Group, Inc. (NYSE: DHX), today announced that it completed the sale of its Slashdot and SourceForge businesses (together referred to as "Slashdot Media") to BIZX, LLC in a transaction that closed on January 27, 2016. Financial terms were not disclosed.

DHI first announced its plan to sell Slashdot Media in July 2015 as part of its strategy to focus on its core brands, as Slashdot Media no longer fits within the Company's core strategic initiatives.

KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. served as the Company's exclusive financial advisor for the transaction.

kodiaktau writes: Seth Vargo, a release engineer for Chef, has resigned due to, "numerous abusive emails and two death threats”.

From the article:

According to Noah Kantrowitz, a former Chef colleague and a recent critic of how the company has been managing its open source community, Vargo’s work on the Chef-centric workflow management tool Berkshelf caused some commotion among certain Chef tool users who advocated using a different workflow method; these people supposedly felt that Berkshelf had somehow affected their daily work habits and routines and their frustrations drove them to react harshly. Vargo apparently “ended up at the center of this storm of disagreements.”

Is this another example of how anonymous behavior on the interwebs has gone too far?

kodiaktau writes: Digital Trends reports on a new Raspberry Pi camera kit that is based on open-source prototype created by Gregory Holloway, a DIY tutorial can be found here.. He is planning to release the kit as a Kickstarter campaign. Four kits will be offered, each with a Pi Model A, camera, body, battery and charger and one of four combinations of lenses and possible LCD viewers. No mention of where lenses are being made, or how to source them.

kodiaktau writes: Hardkernel released a new Raspberry Pi compatible board based on the Samsung Exynos SoC. The board is smaller than a typical Pi, keeping basic HDMI, USB and CSI interfaces. It also has 26 pin expansion board with more GPIO available, however it lacks an Ethernet jack. Initial prices as estimated around $30.

Interesting to note that the author calls out that the Pi Foundation is likely to run into similar name retention problems as Arduino has had as competitors call their boards "Pi Compatible".

kodiaktau writes: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that requires law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before tracking cell phones. The court ruled on a case involving violent crimes committed by Quartavius Davis, who was convicted using tracking records collected over 67 days. Prosecutors showed evidence that 11,606 location points, including recorded calls and location of towers was enough to determine the Davis' whereabouts. Defense attorneys cited 4th Amendment rights of privacy were violated in the warrantless search.

The police originally got authority to use a "D-Order", which allows them to gather records and is easier to obtain than a subpoena. In Judge Sentell's opinion paper, he notes, that the police effectively did an end-run around typical requests for this information. Choosing to treat the request as on-going investigative data instead of the precedent set in previous cases. The judge goes on to say, "...it cannot be denied that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures shields the people from the warrantless interception of electronic data or sound waves carrying communications." His follow-on argument suggests that by using the location information the police gathered and the manner in which they gathered it is effectively monitoring an individual, which does require a warrant.

kodiaktau writes: University of Manchester scientists have been working on a new composite of latex and graphine to make condoms. Scientists believe that the single atom thick graphine will make the condoms stronger and increase sensation. Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan a materials scientist on the program says: "This will be achieved by combining the strength of graphene with the elasticity of latex to produce a new material which can be thinner, stronger, more stretchy, safer and, perhaps most importantly, more pleasurable."

The ultimate goal of the project is to increase use and help reduce sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Teens everywhere rejoice that condoms won't wear out as fast in their wallets.

kodiaktau writes: If you would very much like to spend the next couple of hours looking at sharks and where they have been I would highly recommend OCEARCH. The interface is a little slow to load but the information is AWESOME. Each shark in the program is tagged with a Smart Position and Temperature Tag (SPOT). Although the info is sporadic as it is only trasmitted when sharks surface, the info is pretty interesting. There is a profile for each shark captured including a travel path.

OCEARCH is a non-profit that is researching great white sharks and other apex predators and is working to save the worlds shark population.

kodiaktau writes: The US Navy has been working to reduce capital IT expenditures. Navy CIO Terry Halvorsen is planning to make all Navy servers virtualized and to remove some 7,500 desktops moving them into a data center. Some of that work completed in July 2012 included removing 1/3 of its shore-side servers through virtualization. Interestingly the Navy has partnered with VMWare, which will necessarily require licensing fees and could quickly escalate costs as the strategy progresses. Hopefully Halvorsen has set an exit strategy if costs rise to quickly. One would also think he must be looking at open source as an alternative.

kodiaktau writes: Hasbro is producing a new series of 6" Star Wars figures labeled the "Black Collection". High quality articulation, paint and accessories are the key selling features. Michael Crawford does a review of the Sandtrooper and Darth Maul figures in the attached story. There will be limited releases of these figures to ensure they are kept at a high value. The initial release character was a limited Boba Fett. First series includes Darth Maul, Sandtrooper, R2-D2, Luke Skywalker. Second series includes Boba Fett, Han Solo, Slave Leia and Greedo. (Han shot first.) These seem to be pretty expensive characters but it would be nice to have something high quality.

kodiaktau writes: While not setting a date for the event, AT&T plans to begin selling usage and location information to 3rd parties. This includes browsing habits, mobile app usage, Wi-Fi location, etc. AT&T asserts the data will be anonymous and will protect customer privacy. Subscribers can also opt-out of the program if they wish.

kodiaktau writes: The filming was done by a small GoPro camera attached to a balloon, which was released into the air so it could film the fireworks being let off from the ground below. The video itself is in slow motion, to follow the trajectory of the fireworks. Looks like the balloon finally gets hit around 1:39.

kodiaktau writes: While uncovering an adult female mammoth carcass, scientists discovered a baby Mammoth Elephant that still contains traces of blood and intact DNA. Interestingly the blood was still flowing at -10C. The discovery brings up the debate of cloning DNA and reproducing a mammoth in a laboratory setting.

kodiaktau writes: Five experts including: artist, environmentalist, aviation consultant, data visualization expert and philosopher interpret a flight map showing global flights. While the imagery of the visualization is intriguing, the interpretations are particularly interesting and show how individual background and experience impact they way they view the data.

kodiaktau writes: Steve Wilhite, the inventor of GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Webby Awards. The format was created in 1987 and is considered a mainstay of the internet. The format was originally designed to help convey images over CompuServe. Mr. Wilhite reminds us that the 'g' is soft so the correct pronunciation is Jif, sending shivers up the spines of elocution teachers throughout the United States.